When Power and Pain are Eroticized: Working with BDSM Sexuality

Kirsten wrote this article to help educate mental health professionals about working with BDSM sexuality by providing basic information to prompt reflection on their work with those who engage in BDSM sexual practices.

Article

“There is a troubled history in the mental health profession of misunderstanding alternative sexual practices, which has had the unfortunate effect of marginalizing those who engage in consensual BDSM erotic play. For all of us, sexuality is a profoundly vulnerable part of our identities. For those who engage in non-mainstream sexual practices, the risks involved in revealing their sexual proclivities are much greater given the tendency in our field, and in society, to link “kinky” sex with perversion, abuse and sociopathy…”